Page 34 - History 2020

But given the absence of determined revolutionary leadership and the relative

moderation of the parliamentary leaders, it is perhaps unlikely that there was any
real danger of revolution. But nothing is certain. The crisis vividly exposed the class
divisions between the ruling elite and the rest. of the country. Socially, Whig or Tory,
the Commons and Lords were almost identical, the Lords full of hereditary peers, the
Commons full of their heirs. It was said that both Tories and Whigs believed in divine
right; the Tories the divine right of kings, the Whigs the divine right of Whigs. The
Whig leadership was based on its great country houses; the Bedfords at Woburn, the
Spencers at Althorpe, and the Lansdownes at Bowood. Grey was an aristocrat

through and through; he was reluctant to press for Creation in case it undermined
the monarchy and aristocracy.

The popular violence was an explosion of anger and despair, fueled by poverty; but
there was no repeat of the mass casualties of Peterloo or the Bloody Assizes; as we
saw, there was a greater danger of dying drunk in a fire you had helped start
yourself. Atwood and Place were resolute both for the “the Bill, the whole Bill and

nothing but the Bill*” but also for peaceful protest. They did not condone the mass
smashing of windows which proved to be a highly popular activity at regular intervals
during the crisis (the Duke of Wellington’s Apsley House had a row of windows facing
Hyde Park; he had to post armed guards at his bedrooms). The run on the banks was
an ingenious tactic, but it required the involvement of middle-class people with bank
accounts, not street revolutionaries.

*The other popular slogan was “Support the two Bills!” - the other one being King William IV who
backed his Whig ministers resolutely, apart from a slight wobble at the very end. Rather unfairly, he
was hit on the head by a stone thrown at him while attending Ascot on Derby Day, June 1832, but
saved by his padded hat.

Even so, to many, things looked grim during May 1832. On 18 May, when it was

hinted that Wellington might return as Prime Minister, Place warned Sir John
Hobhouse, his go-between with the Whig ministers, “We cannot go on thus beyond
today. Let the Duke take office and we shall have a commotion in the nature of a civil
war.” The radical William Cobbett summed up the mood later, “Every man you met
seemed to be convulsed with rage*.”

*A different type of passion was expressed by Spencer Perceval MP (son of the assassinated Prime
Minister of the same name). He believed the troubles, plus the onset of cholera in 1831 in many
industrial towns, were a punishment from God. His speeches in parliament included long passages
from the Bible read verbatim (but not reproduced in Hansard) and a call for a day of fasting and
humiliation - which was actually held! (20 March 1831). Radical Henry “Orator” Hunt MP said it
would be more useful to distribute the uneaten food to the poor.